“Noooo!” He actually blushed. A first.
“Lots of time for that later. Girls, or boys or whatever. They will break your heart and mess you around, but once in a while, there will be a good one.”
“Like Mr Fairweather.”
“Yes.”
“What’s his first name?”
“Noah.” I was treading water here. Giving away too much.
“Fox and Noah. That will do for parents.”
His name was at the tip of my tongue again. Wanting to tell him off, when he was actually…kind of funny. Taking this thing he had in his head and running with it. A bit like me.
“Why do you think I would make a good dad? For you? And do you like pizza? There’s a place over here…”
“Can we have something else? Mum always got pizza. Can’t stand it. Is there an Indian?”
“You like curry?”
“I really like those flat breads. Paratha.”
“I like those too. The Taj on George Street. That okay?”
“I wouldn’t know. Never been here before.”
“They do good paratha.”
“Fine.”
Fine?
I let him breathe, paid up and returned to the car, but once we were parked up and sat at a table in the restaurant? I put it back to him.
“Why do you think I’d make a good dad?”
“You bought me good stuff. Not big brands, nothing fancy, but you let me choose. That’s good. I hate when people just give me stuff to wear, and it’s like old and smells funny. I hate it.”
“I understand. But that doesn’t explain it. I’ve never been a dad.”
“You’ve got like hundreds of kids up there, at the school. You dad just fine.”
“I dad?”
“Yeah, You do the, like, telling-off thing, but you’re not mean.”
“I hope not.”
“Look. Some dads… Well. I’ve not got much experience; I have no idea who my real dad is, Mum didn’t know either. But all her boyfriends? Some of them tried to dad, and they were shit at it.”
“I see.” Fuck. A man of few words here, but this conversation was a little overwhelming.
He ordered for himself, asking politely if his choices were okay. Just a paratha and some rice. A little bit of rice. Not a whole portion.
I hated it. Hated that he thought that was all he was worth, when I was sat here, trying to decide if ordering two different curries was over the top.
“Do youlike chicken?”
